Promise The Stars
by FinnickOdair-Will-Live-Forever
Summary: Ever since she was a little girl, Annabeth has dreamed of visiting Greece. The sun, the sea, the architecture...And apparently, Percy Jackson. Can these two polar opposites really manage a summer fling? Or could it be something more? AU.
1. Chapter 1

**I'm not sure if there's any other fics like this or not, so I don't have any chapters prewritten. I'm hoping that you guys enjoy this, it's just one of those ideas that wouldn't leave me alone. Also, I used to write for Percy Jackson under the pen name AllHailPercyJackson, in case any of you were wondering what happened to me. (You probably weren't.)**

**I don't own the Percy Jackson Series.**

**Annabeth:**

Greece has always been a dream of mine, but one of those far-off ones that you can never quite grasp. It would sing to me in my sleep, calling me to the land of ancient power and magic. I've wanted to go there ever since I was a little girl- Greek mythology has always fascinated me. And oh, the architecture! It's any architecture major's dream, I'm sure. I dream of going there every time I close my eyes, and now it's finally going to happen.

Nothing could have prepared me for what, or who, I would find there.

…

"When does our flight leave?"

Thalia Grace, my best friend since I was seven and she was eight, looked sleepy-eyed as she gazed across the line to the baggage counter. She wore a white hoodie pulled tightly across her black t-shirt clad shoulders and ripped blue skinny jeans. She nursed a paper cup of coffee in one hand, her fourth since waking up an hour ago, and the handles of her suitcases in the other.

"Yeah. This coffee tastes like shit." Piper Mclean had joined our clan of two at the age of fourteen when she transferred from a school in North Carolina. She had instantly made an impression on us by beating the crap out of a girl named Drew that had had it coming to her for quite some time. She wore black leggings and old red and white checked shirt that belonged to her father, ever comfortable in times of travel.

"Um." I checked my watch. "Three hours."

"So why are we hear so early?" Thalia groaned. She hadn't exactly been a fan of the five o'clock wake up call.

"I agree. We only have to be here, like, one hour in advance. Right?" Piper asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

"I'm sorry! I didn't want to be late!" I apologized, dropping my suitcases to hold my hands up in mock surrender. The two girls tried to glare at me, but just ended up cracking smiles instead. They knew how I excited I was, and that that was a rare thing for me.

"Whatever. There had better be some hot guys there." Thalia grumbled. In response, Piper snorted and I rolled my eyes.

"What?!" She narrowed her eyes at us threateningly. The thing about Thalia was that she didn't exactly let people in, especially guys. That was fair enough, but it meant that if she fell for someone and it didn't work out then she was crushed. Three months ago she had broken up with cheating boyfriend and trashed his car, and Piper and I had been there for her through all of it. Except, now she was at the stage where all she did was complain about what an ass he was.

"Seriously? You're still, like, obsessed with Will Solace." Piper laughed.

"He's a dick." Thalia rolled her eyes. We knew that in the next few weeks she'd drop out of this stage, have to be convinced not to burn his house down, and then be completely chill about it.

"What about you?" I smirked, turning to Piper. "Looking for something? We're there for the whole summer."

"Maybe. It all depends on who I meet." Piper said honestly, and shrugged her shoulders.

"We all know _exactly _what you're looking for, Annabeth." Thalia grinned as the line finally started to move forward.

"Architecture, architecture, and then more architecture!" Piper finished, high-fiving Thalia.

It was true. I'd been so excited to go, and I had a right to be. Saving had been a bitch- eight months ago I had started waitressing. Then bartending in the evenings, and working at a harden centre on a Saturday, and doing some writing for an online column that paid as if I was sixteen and taking my first job. But we had all agreed that it would be worth it, if only to be able to relax in the sun after our first year of college. Thalia had travelled during her gap year before attending the University of San Francisco with me and Piper, but only through America. This was different, and I was raring to go.

…

If you've never been on a fourteen hour plane ride with Thalia Grace, then you can count yourself as lucky. She'd be restless even without ADHD and a gallon of coffee in her system. She was bouncing up and down in her seat the entire time, and I had a serious conversation with Piper about knocking her unconscious or strapping her to the plane wing.

"How much longer?" Had been her questions of choice. The eighty third time she asked, and yes I counted, I was about to scream when I looked out of the window and down onto Greece. It had been even more beautiful than I had ever imagined. Even from a thousand feet above it, the ocean was a beautiful clear shade of turquoise that created butterflies in my stomach. The buildings far below us looked idyllic, and suddenly all I had wanted to do was be on the ground.

It was nine o'clock in the morning when we finally touched ground. We breezed through security, and only lost Thalia once. We found her shortly afterwards, being yelled at in rapid Greek by a security guard for ridding the baggage carousel. She fired off insults in fluent Greek right back at him, and Piper dragged away before the situation could escalate even further.

Stepping outside was like stepping over a milestone. I had finally done it- I had made it to Greece. After scrounging and saving and learning the language, I was here. For _three months._

It was pre-summer in Athens, but the heat still hit you like a tidal wave.

"This is something I could really get used to." Piper inhaled deeply.

"Come on. Let's just get the car and go." Thalia was already jetlagged, by the looks of things.

"Of course. _Now _you're tired." I sighed, but I couldn't be annoyed at her for more than ten seconds in a place like this.

However, the rental place was where he had our first disagreement.

"I'm not fucking driving that thing." Piper hissed, pointing at our car in anger.

"This is a terrible mix-up." Thalia groaned, rubbing at her eyes.

"It could be worse." I said light-heartedly. Instead of a simple white Honda, we had somehow ended up with a luminous green Vauxhall that looked older than I was.

"I could also be _better_." Piper snapped.

"Come on, now. You have to drive it. Said you would." I bumped her lightly with my shoulder, and shot me a viscous glare.

"I hate you."

…

It took a while to convince her, but eventually Piper drove us the half hour to small town we were staying in. It was the typical hilly Greek town filled with cobblestone roads and whitewashed buildings on top of one another. From the house we would be staying in I could see the ocean and a beautiful long pier, which made me giddy with excitement.

"We're only a short drive away from the Parthenon." I was buzzing, on top of the world.

"Shut up!" Thalia and Piper snapped simultaneously.

Maybe I had been talking too much.

The family we were to stay with were lovely. They spoke good English, even when we tried to speak to them in Greek. They wanted to know that we were well fed, and then sent us up to our rooms to sleep off the jetlag.

"This is amazing." Piper gasped when we walked into the room we would be sharing. The house was small, but it was charming. We were already in love with it.

"Right?" Thalia grinned, and claimed the bed nearest the wall. Piper claimed the twin bed opposite, leaving me to the large wooden window seat covered in a futon. When I laid down, it was surprisingly comfortable and the duvet was feather light and comforting. The walls of our room were white, and a painting of a quaint chapel hung from the wall above Thalia and Piper's beds. We were on top of the biggest hill in the town, so I could easily see the pier from the window. A boy stood hauling nets, and a small fishing boat was just heading out.

There was a dark wooden wardrobe opposite the other girl's beds, next to a vanity mirror that had clearly been set up especially for us.

"This place is beautiful." Piper murmured as she burrowed into the covers of her bed, fully clothed. "Let's never leave."

"Mm…" I mumbled, already falling asleep. "I won't mind…spending…three months…"

I never even finished my sentence.


	2. Chapter 2

**I don't own the Percy Jackson series.**

**Percy:**

The sun in Greece was uncomfortable to work in, but it was one of my dad's conditions if I was to stay with him this summer. Four times a week at six thirty I would head out in his fishing boat for a few hours, and then haul in the nets that I usually half-filled with different fish. Then I would go and study, before heading back to help around the house.

Greece is a truly beautiful place. The sun reflects of the water, making it look like a shimmering fire. When it sets in the evening, it sets the sky a light as well. I've never seen water so clear in my life, and I'm so glad that I get to spend my summer here.

You see, I'm a marine biology major at Cornell in New York. It's a great school and I get to stay near my mom, but there's not really much access to sea life. We mainly work off of textbooks, so I jumped at the chance to apply for a summer apprenticeship in Greece. I'd spent hours researching it, and it involved shadowing one of the best marine biologists in the country and looking into species of marine life that I'd never even heard of.

I'd lived in this village for ten years, before my mother and I moved to New York. She was from there originally, and after she and my dad got divorced we moved away. They were on good terms, and I'd visited every summer since. Now I had a cute baby brother called Alix and an irritating stepbrother, Triton. Getting to the lab from here only took twenty minutes, and putting up with Triton was worth it to see all the people that had known me as a child.

I slung the two nets of fish over my back, ignoring the feeling of the scales slapping against my bare back. I made my way back down the pier and towards the cobblestone roads, which was more hill than flat ground.

"Good morning, Perseus." An elderly lady nodded at me from a rocking chair perched just off of her doorstep.

"Morning, Mrs Kanelos." I nodded to her and grinned as I passed by. "Have a nice day."

These people knew me better than I knew myself. As a child, I was passed around to all the women so that they could coo over me. The men had helped teach me to fish. It was the same for every child in this village. I spoke perfect Greek, but the people of the village went out of their way to make me feel comfortable by speaking to me in English as much as possible. We were like a family, and most people would never leave their life here. We were hard workers, and everybody knew everything about each other.

"Perseus." One of my father's good friends stuck their head out of a window and smiled warmly at me.

"Dorian, _Καλημέρα._" I said, meaning 'good morning'.

"I hear the Maheras family has taken in some students, similar to your age." He said, reaching his hand out to shake mine.

"Really? I didn't know that, I've only been here a few days myself." I explained. The Maheras family were one of the kindest and oldest lines in the village. They had been around for centuries, and I had spent a lot of time with them as a child.

"Hm, yes. I hear your homecoming party is soon. How long are you with us for, Perseus?"

"The whole summer this time, Dorian. Until the middle of September."

"Good." He smiled. "It will be nice to have you around. You had better get along now, son."

I waved one last time and carried on up the road. The fish market was only ten minutes from the pier, though lugging fish made it feel longer than that. You could fetch a good price for most fish, though we usually shipped the ones we caught off to bigger chains.

"Καλημέρα!" I greeted the merchant with a smile. After bartering for a while, we agreed on a price and I went on my way again with a few remaining fish for our dinner.

The house I grew up in was at the top of one of the steepest hills in the village. It wasn't huge, it wasn't fancy, but I didn't care. It was home.

"I'm back!" I called once I had dropped the nets outside. Being at the very top of the hill meant that we had our own mini tiled plaza outside, with amazing views and the first fishing boat my dad had ever bought resting outside.

"I'm in the kitchen!"

A few years after my parents' divorce, my father Poseidon had married Amphitrite. She had lived in the village for her whole life and had been a good friend to my father during the divorce process. Our relationship was strained sometimes, but she tried hard with me and I respected the fact that she didn't take anybody's shit.

"Hey, Amphi." I kissed her on both cheeks in greeting. "What are you up to?"

Her dark black hair was tied back away from her face, and her green eyes gleamed in determination. She wore a white apron over her jeans and blouse.

"Cooking." She replied in a thick Greek accent. "For your homecoming party tomorrow."

She was rolling a salmon through flour and some sort of herb, and the smell of baking bread filled the air.

"Need a hand?" I asked, but she only raised an eyebrow at me.

"You? In the kitchen? No. Put those fish in the fridge and go wash your hands." She instructed. I had learnt a long time ago that arguing with Amphitrite was like signing your own death warrant. So, I did as she said.

"Why do I need a homecoming party?" I asked as I opened the fridge. "I arrived three days ago, and I'm leaving again in September."

"Percy, you should not complain about people wishing to see you. We are all very happy to have you with us for more than a few week, and we wish to show you how much we care." Amphitrite explained, barely looking up from the fish.

"Is there anything you need me to do?" I asked as I ran my hands under the cold water tap.

"No, I think you are alright for now. I will call you if I need anything."

"Okay, Amphi." I started to make my way towards the staircase.

"Percy?"

I stopped and turned back towards her.

"I am glad to have you back." She smiled warmly at me. I grinned back, before climbing up the flight of stairs. My bedroom was right at the end of the upstairs hall, overlooking the fields just beyond the village. When I had arrived, I had found it exactly how I had left it. My dark blue sheets were folded neatly over my mattress, my wardrobe was exploding with clothes and shoes, and my desk was still decorated with different shells. This time, however, there was an intruder in my bedroom.

"Hey."

Jason Grace had been living in the village for two years now. His mother had moved here with him, and he had stayed after she passed away a year ago. That was all I knew- he had never told me where he came from.

"What are you doing in here?" I asked wearily. Usually, he wanted to play a game of football or go fishing. I had suggested swimming one time, and he had looked at me like I'd grown three heads.

"Bored." Jason shrugged. He was laying on my bed, tossing and catching a tennis ball. "Wanna play tennis?"

"It's one hundred and twenty degrees outside." I snorted. "No, I don't want to play tennis."

"Fine." He shrugged and sat up. "I'll go find Luke and Calypso then."

Luke Castellan was the third musketeer in our trio. He has lived here his whole life and so had Calypso, his girlfriend. I had dated her briefly one summer after my sophomore year, but she had always wanted Luke. It didn't really bother me, and we were good friends now.

"You do that." I clapped him on the shoulder as he walked past me.

"I will. See you tomorrow, at your party. I hear the Maheras family have some girls staying with them." Jason stopped at the doorway. "They could be interesting."

"How come everyone has heard this but me?" I frowned.

"Dunno." Jason shrugged, and then he was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**I don't own the Percy Jackson series.**

**Annabeth**

Waking up in Greece had always been something I'd fantasized about. The sunlight would tease me awake, the cool breeze coming through the window would lightly rustle the sheets around me. I'd sigh and stretch and feel content, like nothing on the planet could be better.

What happened was absolutely nothing like my dream.

The heat was so intense that it woke me up a minute before seven am hit the clock on my phone. I was too tired to get up, yet too hot to stay lying there. I inwardly groaned for a few moments before groggily pulling myself out of bed. Piper and Thalia still slept like babies- a wrecking ball demolishing the house wouldn't wake those two up unless it hit somewhere after three in the afternoon. Now I'm naturally an early riser, but the jetlag had really taken it out of me and that morning I just did not want to move.

Reluctantly I changed out of my tank top and pyjama shorts into light blue jean shorts and a light grey t-shirt. Even this early in the morning the sun was intense, so I pulled on my Yankees cap as I slipped my feet into my blue flip-flops. I thought about waking Piper and Thalia but decided that I liked my head attached to my neck, so I made my way downstairs without even giving them a second glance.

"Good morning." I smiled warmly at Κυρία Maheras. I had learnt in the first few weeks of Greek lessons that 'Κυρία' was the go-to title for Greek women, like 'Mrs' or 'Ms'.

"Annabeth." She smiled warmly at me, her accent making my name sound ancient. "Please, sit with the others."

I smiled at her again before making my way outside. The Maheras family might not have been big by Greek standards, but it was by my own. Κυρία Maheras was at least eighty years old and lived with her daughter Dianthe and her two sons Gabriel and Herodotos, aged seventeen and fifteen respectively, along with their father Nikolas. Κυρία Maheras also had her son Pamphilos, his wife Gia, their son Kyros who was twenty five, their twin daughters Hanna and Isis who were both twenty two and their husbands Leandros and Esdras living there. Her youngest son Henoch, who was thirty two, lived there as well, but he had not been there when we had arrived yesterday. She had another son, Aeton, but he lived with his family in a different house in the village and only dropped by a few times a week.

They were yelling at each other in rapid Greek when I approached the table on the outside terrace, and I could pick up a few words that early in the morning. They switched to English when they saw me approaching, and Isis patted the empty chair next to her invitingly. Almost all of them looked typically Greek- olive skin, dark eyes and dark hair. The only differences were Gabriel with her blonde hair and Hanna with her blue eyes.

"Good morning, Annabeth." A man I didn't recognize smiled at me. "I am Henoch. We have not met yet."

"It's a pleasure." I said, extending my hand to shake his own. The table was almost collapsing under the weight of all the food. Different types of meat- sausages, bacon, black pudding- were sizzling in their dishes. There were three different bowls of fruit, some containing things I had only seen pictures of. There were loaves of bread everywhere I looked along with an assortment of vegetables, beans, cereal, coffee and fruit juice.

"Please, dig in." Κυρία Maheras instructed as she placed the last plate, a stack of pancakes, on the table.

"I will be back in just a moment." She said, and disappeared into the house again.

"Hanna, do you really need that much food?" Pamphilos frowned at his daughter as she buried her plate under a mountain of food.

"I am eating for two!" She protested, rubbing her pregnant stomach. Pamphilos rolled his eyes as his wife laughed, resting a hand on his arm.

I liked the Greek ways. Family was important to them and they were tough. I liked being around these people and to see how different their lives were to my own.

"Annabeth, you must eat!" Dianthe called from the other end of the table.

"Oh, I will." I promised, eyeing the bacon. I poured myself a glass of arrange juice and helped myself to a slice of toast and a bacon rasher. I turned around at the sound of rapid French muttering. Before I even saw I knew that I would be Piper, prattling off a list of colourful French cuss words.

"Make some room!" Κυρία Maheras ordered. Thalia ended up three seats to the left of me next to Gabriel and Henoch, where Piper end up diagonally opposite to me next to Gia and Kyros. The two of them did _not _look happy at the wake-up call- they were already pouring cups of coffee big enough to swim in.

"What do you ladies have planned for today?" Gia asked. Everybody in the Maheras family was warm and friendly, and she sounded like she genuinely wanted to know instead of just making polite conversation.

"We're going to explore around the village a bit." I explained after swallowing my bacon. It was delicious, better than any my dad had ever made.

"I would be happy to show you around later." Henoch offered.

"That would be great, thank you." I smiled at him. I shot Thalia a look, and she forced a smile.

"Thanks." She said, before going back to drowning herself in coffee.

"There is a party tonight on the beach." Κυρία Maheras said from her seat at the head of the table. "A boy who grew up here has returned for the summer. He is a lovely boy, it would be so wonderful if you three ladies could come."

"We would love to." Piper had turned her attention from coffee to a bagel and fried mushroom.

"Wonderful." Κυρία Maheras beamed before tucking into her own plateful. The conversation flowed throughout breakfast, and I found out more about the Maheras family. I had known already that they, like many other families in the village, were fishermen, but I found out from Pamphilos that it had begun almost two hundred years ago when Barnabas Maheras had purchases a row boat with the money he had been saving for two years and started to fish for balades, a tasty type of fish that was very popular amongst the Greeks. From there their fishing trade had branched out, and all of the Maheras men had been fishermen except for Aeton, who worked in the city as a translator, and Henoch who gave up fishing to become an office worker to pay his ex-wife and two children's expenses.

"So do you think we could go out in a boat sometime?" Thalia asked. One hour and four cups of coffee and been and gone since she'd been awoken and she had finally started to perk up.

"Of course!" Isis laughed. "You can never go far in _Hellas _without finding a friendly sailor to take you for a boat ride. There are many in this village who would do that for you."

"Great." Piper grinned. "I'd love to see the waters. They just look so beautiful from the bedroom window."

"Vαί, they are a thing of true beauty. We are lucky to live in a place like this." Dianthe sighed happily.

I looked out across the waters and couldn't stop the smile from spreading across my face. It seemed like all I had done since I arrived was smile, and for good reason too.

"If you are all finished," Henoch pulled me away from my thoughts. "The village waits for no one. We can explore now."


	4. Chapter 4

**I wrote this ages ago and thought I'd uploaded it, I'm so sorry haha. I don't own the Percy Jackson series.**

**Annabeth**

I had honestly never been in such a beautiful place my whole life. Henoch showed us the restaurant that had been ran by the same family for one hundred years, the small hotel at the top of one of the hills, the olive groves that could be seen from the viewpoint, the marketplace that awaited Saturday's vendors, the rustic church and the small pier that hosted the fishing boats.

"This is amazing." I said breathlessly from the end of the pier. I spread my arms out and breathed in deeply, taking in the smell of the warm salty air. My peaceful moment was interrupted by a splash, and I rolled my eyes as I turned around.

"Thalia, I'm going to kill you!" Piper was paddling in the water glaring daggers at Thalia, who had presumably just pushed her in.

"Oh, please." Thalia laughed. "You made that way too easy."

"You two…Just…I don't even know." I sighed. Henoch laughed next to me and nudged me lightly in the side.

"At least they are having fun, no?"

"Good point." I smiled back at him and offered a hand to Piper. She was still glaring at Thalia when I had pulled her out, even though it would take all off three minutes for her clothes to dry off.

"I'll get you back." Piper threatened.

"Oh, I'm shaking." Thalia smirked back, irritating Piper further.

"Okay, stop." I ordered, stepping in front of Piper to stop her from lunging, not that she would stay mad for long.

"Triton!" Henoch called, waving at somebody behind us. I turned around to see who it was, and straight away saw the young man with jet black hair and dark brown eyes. He wore faded khaki shorts the same tan as his skin and no shirt, revealing a tattoo of a black trident on his right shoulder.

"Henoch." He grinned back, and walked closer to us. "Τι κάνετε?"

I understood that to mean 'how are you', but Henoch's reply was too fast for me to comprehend.

"This is Annabeth, Thalia, and Piper." Henoch switched to English and pointed to each of us in turn.

"It is nice to meet you." Triton kissed each of us on the cheek in greeting. His accent wasn't as thick as the other locals, and I wondered why.

"Are you a fisherman?" Thalia asked, doing that cocked head thing that I noticed she did whenever she found a guy attractive.

"Yes. Most of us are." Triton nodded. He turned his attention to me, his eyes boring into me. "What is it that you do?"

"Oh, we all go to university. I study architecture." I would have a conversation with a dead body if I thought that it had asked me about architecture or my studies.

"Well, you will have to let me show you some great places sometime." Triton offered, and I nodded enthusiastically.

"That would be amazing. Though, Henoch is doing well himself." I said, gesturing to him.

"I am sure that Triton can take you from here. His English is better than mine is." Henoch smiled at each of us in turn. "I have an errand to run, but I shall see you later tonight."

Henoch went on his way, speaking into his cellphone in rapid Greek as he did.

"So, you are staying with the Maheras family." Triton said as he turned and started to walk away. Thalia, Piper and I shared a look before we realised that we should probably follow him.

"Yeah." Piper said after we had caught up. "They're nice people. There's a lot of them though."

"Oh, if you think that is a lot you should see the Gikas family. There are twenty two of them living in the same house, five of them under the age of six." Triton laughed.

"That sounds horrible." Thalia shuddered as we climbed our way up through the hilly village. People tipped their hats or nodded to us as we went by them, and Triton would greet them.

"You may meet some of them at the party tonight, if you are there." He whirled around suddenly, only a few inches from my face.

"You're coming to the party, no?" It felt like he was staring into my soul, his eyes almost black from this level of closeness.

"Um, yes." I straightened out my t-shirt. "We're going."

"Good." Triton smiled easily and turned around again. "I will look forward to seeing the three of you there."

…

**Percy**

"Luke, cut it out."

Of course, he ignored me and continued to chase his girlfriend around my dad's fishing boat.

"Luke!" Calypso squealed, darting around the sail to get away from him.

"Cut it out!" I snapped, irritated by how loud they were. "Seriously, you'll scare the fish away. What's the point in coming out so early with me if you're just going to play kiss chase on my boat?"

"Sorry, Perce." Luke grinned as he caught Calypso's wrist and pulled her into him.

"Sorry!" Calypso echoed as she pulled Luke in for a hug.

I rolled my eyes and turned back to watch the nets. Any minute now I could pull them in and we could get back to the pier. Calypso and Luke were like puppies- running around everywhere licking each other's faces, and it was getting on my nerves. It may have seemed weird, me hanging out with my ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend who happened to be one of my best friends. Honestly, I didn't think of it like that- Calypso and Luke were friends, and a good couple.

"Perce, what time does the part start tonight?" Luke asked. He sat down behind me and leaned back on his elbows. Calypso sat down next to him, desperately trying to find signal on her cell.

"I don't know. Seven? Seven thirty?" I shrugged. My eyes never left the water, and I never broke my focus from the weight of the nets. I didn't live here anymore, but I had never forgotten the lessons that my father had taught me at a young age and continued to teach me now. Fishing came naturally to me, like soccer came to Luke and like singing came to Calypso.

"You don't know when your own party is?"

I couldn't see him, but I knew he was frowning. I had known Luke for years, and sometimes I thought I knew him better than I knew myself.

"Nope. But if you two want to come to mine at six then you can help me, Jason and Amphi set up." Having it in the evening meant that it didn't interrupt a day of work, and it wasn't so hot that we melted on the spot.

"That would be cool. Where is it happening?" Calypso asked. I heard a clatter, and figured that she had given up trying to find cell reception on the ocean.

"The usual place- the plaza in the middle of the town. The one place in this whole town that doesn't have a hill." I shrugged.

"We'll be there." Luke laughed. "Is Triton going?"

"Yeah." I turned to him briefly to roll my eyes. "I don't know why. He doesn't even like me."

"He does." Calypso assured me, not that it particularly mattered to me. "He just…Well. You know how he is."

Triton was three years older than me at the age of twenty one. When he was eighteen and I was fifteen, he had been engaged to Calypso's older sister Kharis before I had dated Calypso. Kharis was lovely- on paper, she was perfect for Triton. She was smart, pretty, kind and a similar age to him. He hadn't treated her right and they had cancelled their wedding, which was practically unheard of in this village. It led to Calypso and I being able to share thoughts and complaints about Triton with each other, seeing as we both knew him well.

"It doesn't really matter anyway." I started to pull the nets in, and Luke got up to help me. Once the fish had been pulled in, I checked my watch.

"We should probably be going." I said. "There's no rest for the wicked, after all."


	5. Chapter 5

**I don't own the Percy Jackson series.**

**Percy**

"Hey."

I looked up from setting up a platter of sun dried tomato bread, still warm, on the buffet table at the sound of Luke's voice. He was stood hand-in-hand with Calypso, watching as Amphitrite and I set up the plates of food on the table. There were no tables in the plaza, so my step-mother had only made simple foods, if you counted chunks of breaded salmon and slices of lamb kleftiko 'simple'.

"Hey, guys. Grab some plates." I said, gesturing to the mountain of food that Amphitrite had spent the last few days preparing. Luke rubbed his hands together, and the two of them got stuck in.

"Where's Jason?" Calypso asked, noticing his absence after a few minutes.

"Amphi sent him home." I explained, nodding to where she was mixing sangria at the make-shift bar that we had set up. "He was really sick."

"That sucks. I'm gonna go help stock the bar." Luke said, and went off to help Amphitrite.

"Typical." Calypso rolled her eyes. I snorted, and we worked in silence for the next few minutes.

"Hey," Calypso broke the comfortable silence. "Do you think those new girls are coming?"

"Probably. They're staying with the Maheras family, so…" I shrugged. I had spent a lot of time with the Maheras clan as a child and after speaking to Gia Maheras, I knew that they were wanting to come.

"That should be interesting. Nobody ever comes here, it'll be nice to meet some new faces." Calypso was one of the few people I'd met that was genuinely nice. In Greece that was more common, but Calypso was someone who went above and beyond to connect with others and help them out.

"Yeah. If they come, that is." To be honest, I wasn't that curious. I lived in New York, where I saw hundreds of new faces a day, if not thousands.

"Yeah. Hey, you should go set up the sound system."

I nodded in agreement and walked over to the small stereo that we had provided. I selected a CD from my father's collection of Greek music and inserted it. I plugged the speakers into the back and set the volume accordingly. Classic Greek music floated into the air and Amphitrite shot me a warm smile.

I didn't know why they were throwing me such a big party. I visited every summer, just not for as long, and I didn't realise that so many people would put in so much effort for this. People had been stopping by our house all morning with various foods and drink for the party. It was nice of them, but I didn't know if I was worth all the hassle- especially with mine and Triton's birthdays coming up this summer. My father and Amphitrite would want to celebrate them as well.

I checked my watch- it was eight o'clock. I had really had no idea when this thing was starting before Amphi told me after thumping me over the head. People would start showing up in the next twenty minutes. Everything was pretty much set up and although it wasn't dark by any means, the sun was dropping out of the sky and it was greying.

"Are you excited?" Amphitrite asked, walking to stand next to me.

"It will be good to see everyone." I smiled at her. She had put so much effort into making me feel welcome, I had forgotten about the fights we had had last time I was here.

"They will love to see you too, Perseus." Amphitrite patted me on the cheek and grinned.

A few hours later, the drink was flowing and everybody was having a great time. People had come to tell me how much I'd grown and how long it had been since they last saw me more times than I could count, but it didn't bother. I liked seeing the people that had given me some of the best years of my life after almost a year of no contact. I talked about school, my mother, the apprenticeship and how great the food was for most of my night.

A few hours into the party, I walked over to the bar to take a breather. Calypso's older sister gave me a kind smile and an ouzo, which consisted of aniseed and a hell of a lot of alcohol, which I sipped gratefully. My eyes wondered across the party, taking in all the dancers and the children devouring the buffet. Everybody seemed to be having a great time together. That's when my eyes fell on _her._

Her blonde, curly hair was loose around her shoulders and glinted from the light of a dozen candles. Her white dress accented her golden, obviously Californian tan. Even from where I was sat, a crowd of people away from her, her stormy grey eyes looked piercing and seemed to stare intensely not at me, but almost through me. She was beautiful…

But she was standing with my brother.

…

**Annabeth**

By the time the three of us had gotten ready and arrived at the party, it was almost nine thirty. I thought it might have been rude, but Thalia assured me that it was fine, we were just fashionably late. Besides, the Maheras family had arrived an hour ago and they were representing us by being there.

"I hope they had alcohol." Piper sighed as we made our way down to the plaza. "I like alcohol."

She was wearing a dark red, flowing top that had one long sleeve and one tank top strap, paired with tight white skinny jeans and red strappy heels that clattered over the cobblestones.

"I don't want to walk back up that hill afterwards. Can we get a donkey or something?" Thalia was wearing a thin white jumper with the words 'I have issues' printed across it in black block capitals and black high-waisted jeans, as well as her trademark black converse.

"Stop moaning. And if you pass out Piper, we're not carrying you." I had opted for a dress. It was white and reached my mid-thigh, with a black and silver zip going up the middle at the front. It was a little tight, but I felt comfortable in it. The decision to wear my silver heels, despite them only being two and a half issues, had been a bad one. I realised this after twisting my ankle six times on the cobblestones before we had even left the hill that our house sat on top of.

"Just leave me with a hot Greek guy, then. See if I care." Piper said, turning her nose up at me and Thalia.

The party was in full swing by the time we arrived. People were talking, laughing, dancing, eating and drinking together happily in large groups, It was nothing like a street party back home- those usually ended in riots, with Thalia starting them more often than not.

"No fist fights." I warned her. She rolled her eyes at me in response.

"Fooooood." She groaned, and Piper and I were left in her dust as Thalia dashed off to grab a plate.

"Um, okay." Piper shrugged. "I'm going to go talk to that guy."

She pointed out an attractive stranger and was off as quickly as Thalia was. I stood at the edge of the party for a few minutes, unable to believe that they had both abandoned me.

"Pretty girls should never stand by themselves."

Triton's voice was easily recognizable to me. I turned around and offered him a small smile.

"Hey."

"Feeling a little out of your depth?" He asked, and slide his arm through mine. He was wearing a white button-up shirt, which I could see his tattoo through, and dark jeans. He looked pretty gorgeous, if I was going to be honest.

"A little." I admitted. "Everybody's so loud and…Vibrant.

"It takes some getting used to, but a beautiful girl like you should not feel intimidated." With his other hand, Triton brought my own free hand to his lips and kissed it softly.

"Thanks." I laughed. I could feel my cheeks pinken slightly at the attention I was receiving. This was definitely not something I was used to.

"Where are your two lovely friends?" He asked as he stared across the party.

"Oh, they're around." I shrugged. "Somewhere."  
I glanced around the party, and my eyes rested on him almost immediately. He wore a dark green button-up that matched the amazing shade of his eyes, and dark jeans that made his already dark hair seem even blacker. He was tan, but not quite as tan as the other villagers. I wondered where he came from, what his story was, and why he was staring at me so intensely.

"Care to dance, Annabeth?" Triton asked, drawing my attention back to him.

"Hm? Oh…Sure." I said, and he whisked me away onto the dancefloor.


	6. Chapter 6

**I don't own the Percy Jackson series.**

**Percy**

The sun was the only source of light to illuminate the kitchen the morning after the party. It was strong already at eight o'clock, like always. Fresh bacon sizzled in the pan I was watching and eggs bubbled in the other. Amphitrite always had a supply of hand-squeezed orange juice in the fridge, which made for a delicious breakfast most mornings. She, my father, Triton and Alix were all asleep upstairs- they wouldn't stir until I called them for breakfast. I knew they must be tired after my homecoming party last night, so I figured that making them a hot meal was the least I could do.

The party had been a lot of fun. I had seen plenty of familiar faces from my time growing up here and the endless summers. I'd seen the new faces, too- the three girls that were staying with the Maheras family. At the end of the night my mom had called, which was pretty emotional because I always miss her when I come here. It's worth it though, for the apprenticeship and to see everyone again.

"Hey."

I turned around so quickly I almost landed my hand in the greased up bacon pan. One of the girls that was staying in the village, the blonde one that had almost melted my brain with eye contact, stood at the foot of the staircase wearing a dark green t-shirt that grazed her mid-thighs and a pair of Amphitrite's old running shorts.

"Um, I…Hi." I stuttered. I must have sounded overwhelmingly confident.

"Hey, Percy. I had fun at your party last night." The girl offered me a small smile as she hugged her chest with her arms.

"Uh, yeah. No problem." I said, and then added, "I don't think I got your name."

"Annabeth. Annabeth Chase." She offered me a hand and I shook it, a custom that I had never really seen a girl do before. It was nice.

"So, Annabeth…You and my brother?" I asked, hoping I wouldn't make her feel awkward.

"Oh, Gods no. I started to feel sick last night and wanted to leave. I don't have a key to the Maheras' house yet and I didn't want to pull them away from the party so Triton said it would be okay if I came back here and slept in the spare room. He gave me these shorts and his shirt to change into." Annabeth explained hastily. Her cheeks were tainted pink and she look like she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't be.

"Oh. That's actually my shirt." I said, probably one of the best things I could have said in that moment- not.

"Really? Sorry. I'll was it and bring it back, I-"

"It's fine." I cut her off. "You look better in it anyway."

I blurted it before I'd even processed what I should say.

"I, um, I mean-" I stammered. My face was bright red, I was sure of it.

"It's okay." Annabeth's laugh sent a small shiver down my spine. "Thank you."

We stood in silence for a few minutes, with me looking anywhere but at her. She really was beautiful, just as much now with traces of make-up still on her face and her hair in a messy ponytail than last night in her white dress. I'd never been this flustered in front of a girl before, not even when I first started dating Calypso.

"Uh, I think your bacon's done."

I turned back to the stove. The bacon was a few seconds away from burning, so I quickly shut off the gas. The eggs were finished now too. I slid two pieces of bacon and an egg onto a slice of bread that I had already buttered and put on a plate and placed the other slice on top. I replaced the bacon and eggs in each pan and turned the gas back on, and handed the sandwich to Annabeth.

"Are you sure you have enough?" She asked with an eyebrow raised.

"Yeah. Amphi always over-buys." I assured her, piecing together my own sandwich. We sat down at the kitchen table together and ate in silence for a few moments.

"Do you go to college?" I asked, and I swear her eyes lit up.

"I study architecture in San Francisco." She said, and began to gush about her projects and assessments. I liked listening- it was obvious that she was really passionate about it.

"Sorry, I'm talking too much. Do you go to college?" Annabeth asked as I got up to make new sandwiches.

"I go to Cornell in New York."

"Cornell? That's impressive."

"Thanks. I study marine biology. I've got an apprenticeship not far from here for the summer in one of the world's leading marine life labs." I explained proudly. It had been a tough spot to win, and I was proud to have made it mine.

"That's awesome." She nodded. We spoke some more about her family- Her father had remarried and had two sons, and her mother was an architect in Manhattan. I explained that my mother lived in New York and that I spent my summers here, and that I had grown up here. It was awesome to talk to her one on one, but I knew that I should call my family down for their breakfast.

"Is Triton not coming?" I asked as my father, Amphitrite and Alix all sat down at the table.

"His bed hasn't been slept in." My father shrugged as I passed out the sandwiches and poured orange juice.

"He must have slept on the beach again." Amphitrite waved her hand dismissively and tucked into her sandwich.

"Percy please may I have some juice?" For a six year old, Alix had a great set of manners. Growing up in a bilingual household meant that his English was almost impeccable, and he knew to use English when we had American visitors over. He was going to be a heartthrob when he grew up, with his dark hair and dark eyes.

"Of course, little man." I poured some orange juice into a plastic cup and passed it to him carefully.

"Hey, Jackson family!" Jason Grace burst through our front door and clattered into the kitchen, bouncing a soccer ball up and down. "What's up?"

Annabeth looked like she'd seen a ghost. She was visibly paler, and her mouth formed an 'o' shape as her hands slowly raised to cover it in shock. She stood up at snails' pace and took one small step towards Jason.

"Jason?" Her voice shook as she said his name.

"Um…That's me?" Jason look so confused that he obviously never seen Annabeth before in his life.

"You need to come with me right now."


	7. Chapter 7

**I don't own the Percy Jackson series.**

**Annabeth**

In order to understand the whole sibling saga, some background information on Thalia Grace is required. Her mother, Beryl Grace, was a cable actress and I never found out her father's real name. Everybody nicknamed him Zeus, even Thalia, probably due to the fact that his airline 'Zeus Airways' was one of the biggest in the world. He was impossibly rich, and Thalia wanted nothing to do with that fortune. Their relationship was strained but I knew that she loved him, and since she moved out they had become a little closer.

Thalia also had a brother, Jason, who was two years younger than her. I had only met him a few times, the two of us tended to hang out at my place, but Thalia had showed me plenty of pictures. She hadn't seen for years. I knew she missed him like hell and still loved him a lot. She just didn't know where to find him.

Her mother was where the real problems stemmed from. She developed a drinking problem when Thalia was young. When she was thirteen, Beryl took eleven year-old Jason, along with fifty thousand dollars, and left. Nobody knew where they had gone, and it was as if they had vanished. Eventually, it came out that she had been having an affair with one of Zeus' business associates and, paired with her worsening drinking problem, she had taken off. A couple times during high school a local newspaper would pop up with a suspected sighting of Beryl Grace, always in a different location. Thalia learned to ignore them all, and it had been a few years since we had seen an 'update'.

So, you can probably estimate my level of surprise when I saw Jason Grace, older and seemingly more confused than I remembered him from Thalia's pictures, in the Jackson family kitchen. He had the small scar on his lip that I had seen on one of the few times I met him, and the same electric blue eyes as Thalia. It was undoubtable that Jason Grace was stood before me. I grabbed him and was out of the house like a shot.

"Where are we going?" Jason asked as I pulled him blindly through the streets. "And who are you?"

"Annabeth, slow down!" Percy was only a few paces behind us. "You have no idea where you're going!"

"Right." I stopped short, and Jason bumped into me. I let Percy take the lead, and we carried on in a hurried pace.

"Percy, what the hell is going on?" Jason asked, when he saw that he was getting nowhere with me.

"I don't know man, but I'm guessing this is pretty serious?" There was a hint of a question in his tone. I nodded in agreement.

"It's also a surprise." I added. I was pretty excited. I didn't know how or why Jason was here, but I knew exactly how my best friend would react to finally seeing him again. She missed him way more than she ever let on.

"This is crazy. I'm ten new types of confused."

Neither Percy nor I replied to Jason's remark. He let me pull him through the village, following Percy at a rapid pace. By the time we had gotten to the top of the Maheras' hill, I was sweating. It was still pretty early, but the sun was a relentless bitch.

"You're staying here?" Jason asked, but again I didn't reply. Percy waited downstairs as I pulled Jason with me up the staircase. I almost belted out Thalia's name, and the only thing that stopped me was the vague thought that Hanna, Kυρια Maheras' pregnant granddaughter, might be asleep.

"Thalia!" I called her name as soon I was in our shared bedroom. I had made Jason wait outside.

"What?" She groaned, rolling over in bed to face me.

"How are you not up yet?" Her laziness broke my train of thought.

"It's only nine thirty!" Thalia complained, throwing an arm over her eyes to shield them from the glare of the early sun beating through the window.

"Where's Piper?"

"Docks." Thalia grunted. "Why are you waking me up, asshole?"

"Come with me." I couldn't help but grin at her.

"Alright, weirdo." Thalia shot me a strange look as she climbed out of admittedly comfortable looking bed.

I threw the bedroom door open, revealing Jason. The confusion dropped from his face as soon as he saw Thalia. They both gaped at each other, wide-eyed, neither of them able to configure a sentence.

"What-"

"How-"

"I don't-"

"Thalia, it's _Jason_." I cut in at an attempt to resurrect all conversation.

"Yeah, I see that." She snapped at me. "Get over here."

The two of them stepped towards each other and embraced tightly. After a few minutes, they pulled apart. Both of their eyes were glistening, but neither would let themselves cry.

"I don't understand." Thalia said, her voice cracking slightly.

"I've missed you, Thals." Jason grinned at her. He was clutching her hand tightly.

And so, Jason told the story of how he had ended up in a small village in Greece. When Beryl had taken Jason, she had told him that they were taking a short vacation and that Thalia and Zeus would be joining them soon. She had taken him from San Francisco to Michigan. After a few weeks, they went on to New York. Jason was confused, but believed the lies that Beryl spun about how Thalia and Zeus were waiting for them there. After another week, she told him that they had passed away in a plane accident on their way to them. Jason was devastated, and went with their mother to many different countries over the next few years to avoid Zeus finding them. They would stay in a few different hotels over a month before moving on. When Jason was fifteen, meaning Thalia would have been seventeen, they finally settled in a small house in the village. Beryl died a year later in a drunken car crash. By that point, Jason didn't believe that Zeus and Thalia were dead but he had no way to find them. Working on a fishing boat only gave him enough for living costs- there was no way he would have been able to afford a plane ticket even if he knew for sure that they still lived where they had four years ago. With no way to contact them, Jason had pretty much lost hope of ever seeing his family again. Except now, he stood before us, almost a man with his eighteenth birthday just around the corner, with a grin on his face at the sight of his long lost sister.

"I'd kill her." Thalia was seething with rage. "If she wasn't already dead, I'd kill her."

"It's okay." Jason squeezed Thalia's hand.

"It's not! She took everything from us, Jason! She took you out of my life!" Thalia protested, but Jason only laughed.

"That doesn't matter. You're here now, and I'm here, and I'm never letting go of you again. Even if you _are _still an annoying tween punk." He assured her.

I saw Piper coming up the stairs before I heard her.

"What the hell is going on here? Has Thalia actually found herself a man?"

"That's wrong in more ways than you could possibly know right now." Thalia cringed.

Jason turned around to face Piper, and as soon as he did I saw her face change. Her eyebrows shot halfway up her forehead and her mouth dropped open a little. Jason's face was almost a mirror image of her own.

"This is Jason." Thalia narrowed her eyes at Piper. "My _brother_."

"Oh!" Piper gasped. "Jason! What the hell?"

"I don't even know. This is crazy." I laughed.

"It sure is." Jason laughed with me, and soon we were all just laughing at something that really wasn't all that funny. We decided that we should go get Percy, seeing as we just left him downstairs, and Piper and I followed Thalia and Jason down the stairs.

"You like him." I quietly accused Piper.

"I do not!" She said, a little too quickly."

"Uh-huh."

"Annabeth, I haven't even spoken to him." Piper raised an eyebrow at me.

"I have _never _seen you pull that face at a guy before." I teased.

"Well…It's just…Thalia never told us that her long lost, presumed dead brother would be so attractive."

I refrained from pushing her down the stairs.

**Merry Christmas everyone. :)**


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